Sacred Groves – Live in Europe

In April of this year, Kees van Boxtel, Shabbir Hussein and I loaded up a small hatchback car and took off for a whirlwind tour of Europe. We played in small, humble and beautiful venues in Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Germany while being hosted by friends and music lovers throughout the journey. Thanks to Kees’ ambition, we recorded just about every concert. Now I’m happy to share with you a collection of those recordings in our album ‘Sacred Groves – Live in Europe’. We attempted to make the album follow a similar structure as our performances. In Europe, I learned, it is typical for concerts to have a ‘pause’ half way through or even just 40 minutes in. First we would play a full Raga (on the album, we selected Raga Yaman with alap, jhaptaal (10 beats) and teental (16 beats). Then we would take a pause, followed by some lighter pieces: Kees’ beautiful dhun in Raga Hamsadhwani and guruji Pt Alok Lahiri’s dhun in Mishra Bhairavi to close.